“I did not,” said with a smile, “but (it’s) pretty rewarding to see how happy these guys are to be here, and probably happy just to be out of that plane.”

Backes and his wife did this to get the dogs to the no-kill shelter she works for near St. Louis. We can already hear the swooning across the hockey world for what a cool thing this was for Backes to do in his spare time. Backes not getting named to the All-Star Game in this case paid off nicely for three fortunate dogs.

Now if Backes can get the Blues deep into the playoffs and perhaps with the Blues’ first Stanley Cup, he could be the mayor of St. Louis for life.